Hello Arama readers! Summer is in, and a new season of Jdramas have started airing since last week. Again, you can check out the list of the summer line up below. A few tidbits on Summer Drama Specials are also included.

Last week, the anticipated live action drama Death Note premiered, also via live stream internationally through Crunchyroll. Since some series already started airing, what have you watched and/ or planning to watch?

You can check out the new compiled list of the spring drama line up below.

Miura Aoi (Fukushi Sota) is an indecisive guy with a timid personality who dislikes summer. He once aspired to become an architect, but his dream has faded as he lets the days go by working as an assistant in a small architectural firm in Tokyo. Then one day, Aoi has a fateful reunion with Akari Serizawa (Tsubasa Honda), his first love and a childhood friend. Back in their school days, the two were always together. However, Akari suddenly disappeared in the summer of their third year in high school. Aoi forced himself to bury his feelings for her deep within him, but it could never truly be forgotten. Aoi’s heart is once again moved by their unexpected reunion. However, there is another guy who is also named Aoi standing next to her…

Ikegami Tatsuya (AKIRA) is a cool-headed, ambitious elite businessman with a passionate heart. Confident and competitive, he would do whatever it takes to achieve his goals. Tatsuya works as an urban developer for a real estate firm. Aiming to buy up land in a town as a proposed site for a project worth several hundred billion yen, first he must gather information on the rights holders. Tatsuya decides to hide his identity and join the local fire department as a volunteer firefighter. There, he meets fellow volunteer firefighters and witnesses their pure passion and dedication for their work. Through the experience of training and working with the group, Tatsuya’s career values and mindset start to change, and eventually he learns to grow into a “hero that protects the city.”

“The God of risk” is a sensational social entertainment drama that revolves around Saigyouji Satoshi (Tsutsumi Shinichi), a legendary expert in the field of crisis management who is known as “The God of Risk.” Satoshi worked in crisis management for General Electric in the U.S. and for the Japanese government. Trusting in Satoshi’s exceptional skills and professional talent, Sunrise, one of the largest general trading company in Japan, hires Satoshi to deal with the company’s numerous problems and scandals. Meanwhile, the heroine Kagari Kaori (Toda Erika) is an intelligent, career-oriented woman who fluently speaks several foreign languages. After graduating from Tokyo University, Kaori has been working for Sunrise for 10 years. Despite her young age, Kaori earns an executive position of the new product development department. However, she soon faces a crisis: a recall on a next generation battery product. Now Satoshi and Kaori must work together to deal with the company’s recall nightmare.

Sasaki Rena (Kitagawa Keiko) is a beautiful woman endowed with excellent memory and superior intelligence. Rena works as an investigator who pursues corruption among other detectives at a medium-size private investigation agency called Suma Research. What motivated her to take on such position is the fact that her younger sister Sakura was murdered by a stalker who was informed of her whereabouts by an unknown detective. One day after a year, Makoto (Kawaguchi Haruna) walks into Suma Research for a job interview and gets assigned to become an assistant for Rena. Working alongside Rena, Makoto comes face to face with the extreme work situation which is well beyond anything she could have ever anticipated.

It was 16 years ago. Hiroshi (Matsuyama Kenichi), a clumsy middle schooler, tripped at the park and fell on top of a frog. Splat! The frog was flattened. But wait. The flat frog got stuck on his shirt and, even stranger, started to speak! It even developed emotions that were way more powerful than the average person. That’s how this one-of-a-kind gutsy frog named Pyonkichi (voiced by Mitsushima Hikari) came to be. At times they help each other, at times they fight like crazy, but Hiroshi and Pyonkichi are a unit and together they will live a gutsy life.
Hiroshi was 14 then. Now, he’s a full-grown man. Thirty years old. Everyone around has also gotten much older.
“Be gutsy and everything will be ok!” Well, life doesn’t really work that way, and they realize this as the years pile on. Together with Pyonkichi, Hiroshi got through everything in life simply by being gutsy. Now, he’s a loser. Things are about to change, however. A sudden transformation in Pyonkichi spurs Hiroshi to redo his life.

Yagami Light, (Kubota Masataka), is an ordinary university student. One day, he receives a death note which changes his life. The death note awakens his warped sense of justice and genius. He becomes murderer Kira and punishes criminals.L, (Yamazaki Kento), is a well known private detective. L appears in front of Light. L defines Kira as evil and decides to catch Kira. Then N (Yuki Mio), who has a beautiful appearance but dangerous existence, appears.

Set in megabank Tokyo Daiichi Bank, “Hanasaki Mai Speaks Out” returns where it left off as Hanasaki Mai (Anne), the “relentless heroine”, and Soma Ken (Takaya Kamikawa), the “hopeless middle-aged man”, continue their bumpy partnership in this delightful drama. The duo will tackle the multiple scandals and problems that arise in the bank’s branches throughout the country—lost cash, embezzlement, information leakage, accounting fraud, and calculated bankruptcy.
Two employees with neither power nor status stand up for their distressed colleagues who don’t have the nerve to blow the whistle. Follow the duo as they brilliantly solve one problem after another.

Hanada Yoneko (Ito Ayumi) is a police detective who works out of Tokyo’s Ryogoku precinct. Hanada is good at her work, but having just turned 35 she’s acutely aware of the clock ticking and is desperate to find a husband. The only trouble is, the guys she falls for all turn out to be criminals.

Based on the book by Takano Josen who himself experienced reviving a depopulated village, this human drama tells the success story of a soon-to-be-deserted village and a great change in people there.
As per his own request, an elite officer at Tokyo Metropolitan Government, Asai is transferred to the division in charge of the village of Kagura – the Division of Agriculture, Forestry, Commerce and Industry in the Hoshikawa city government. However, Its city mayor, Fukumoto is in favor of village’s dissolution on the ground of financial difficulties.
Asai, on the other hand, has other plans. First, He wants to revive the village by making Kagura festival into a success. With as little as 10,000 yen for its budget, Asai produces some innovative ideas that surprise the city government and village people. His positive attitude to revive the village gradually changes the people around.

Nishiuchi Mariya stars as a novice concierge in a luxury hotel who strives to see her customers smile. The heroine with never-give-up attitude who doesn’t say “no” to customers tries her very best to solve problems with support from her seniors. The drama brings heart-warming one-off episodes every week to viewers.Toko has finally got her dream job as concierge at “Hotel Vollmond”. One day, fashion designer and customer, Sachi, requests Toko to change the flowers at her party venue, which Toko promises to do without due consideration. With the help of her senior, Honjo, she manages to keep her rash promise, but Honjo starts to question why on earth Washio chose Toko as concierge in the first place. Toko, then, gets enthusiastic about supporting a customer who plans to propose to his girlfriend.

37.5C. This number might make some working parents anxious. The temperature is the borderline for a nursery school may refuse to babysit a child. It is difficult for many working parents to leave work early or take a day off on short notice to care for their children. This drama focuses on a nursery teacher, Momoko, who takes care of sick children when parents cannot be with them. Misako Renbutsu plays a leading role for the first time in a commercial broadcaster’s drama.
Featuring problems that working parents often face, this story portrays Momoko’s development as a person and the relationships she builds with those around her.Momoko is a novice child care employee at a visiting sick child care service called “Little Snow”. The story starts with Momoko visiting her first client in a house that, she is shocked to find, is utterly filthy. Although she tidies up with the best of intentions, her client later complains to the company. Her boss, Yanagi (Naohito Fujiki) – much angered by the complaint – gives Momoko a warning against any kind of intervention in clients’ family issues. The co-owner of the company, Asahina (Hiroki Narimiya), on the other hand, intercedes to offer Momoko his support, and a few days later, Momoko is sent to a regular client’s house, Shinohara (Mokomichi Hayami).

Set in a high school chorus club that faces dissolution, this school drama tells the story of an unconventional high-school girl and how her determination to save the club changes the chorus members and the teacher.
Makoto (Yoshine Kyoko) who has moved from Kagawa prefecture to Omotesando high school in Tokyo is looking forward to joining the once-famous chorus club she had always admired. As she arrives, however, things are not as she had expected. The club hardly has any members, and its instructor – Ariake (Shirota Yu) – who first taught Makoto the joy of singing is a mere shadow of his former self living in misery. Despite the unexpected reality, Makoto is determined to achieve her “goal” in the chorus club where her parents enjoyed their students life. However, her classmates react to her efforts to recruit new members with only hostility, with some even telling her to stop being engaged in the club

Amagi Yu (Higashiyama Noriyuki), a slightly eccentric detective is assigned to Twelfth Section of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department’s First Investigative Division from the Lost and Found Centre. The team is known as the “graveyard for detectives” and they are filled with expelled detectives. Its group is comprised of elite yet out of the ordinary of detectives: Samura Kosuke (Takashima Masahiro), Yamashita Takumi (Kataoka Ainosuke), Nagasawa Keita (Suzuki Kosuke), Mizutani Tamaki (Kurashina Kana) and Katagiri Masatoshi (Yoshida Kotaro). Amagi in particular is very obsessed with time (time of death, time of alibi) and its meaning for a case. The group have conflicts with each other, but cooperate and solve difficult cases.

Shinonome Jinpachi (Hashizume Isao) has returned to the Kyoto Prefectural Police’s First Investigative Division as a specially commissioned detective. Meanwhile, Natsuki Asako (Natori Yuko) a team leader, has just been assigned to the division. Shinonome and Asako solve the same cases with completely different investigation methods. Shinonome has many information sources that he cultivated through his years of investigation. He would hit the streets and gather information that is not considered to have a direct relationship with a case. Asako has many fans within the police because she has moved from post to post. She is adapt at mobilising these allies and makes use of her inexperience in investigations to carry out daring ones. When these two investigation methods overlap, there will never be a typical investigation and unknown facts a step ahead of the solution will emerge.

Yoshii Emiri (Takei Emi) begins work at a general trading company. Due to her family’s failure in business, she had to give up her dream of earning a MBA in America. Now, she hopes to become an executive of a company. Emiri is sent to the general affairs department at the trading company. She freaks out when she learns that lower level employees have to wear uniforms and she has to deal with everything from changing light bulbs to ordering business cards. Nonetheless, she works hard to pay off her family’s debt.Emiri then finds herself in the crosshair of coworkers. Senior female employees are perturbed that she doesn’t drink coffee with them and skips their gatherings.Meanwhile, the male employees like working with her, but only when they need an attractive women for matters like entertaining clients. The male employees do not give her serious work.Emiri, who appears popular among the male employees, soon becomes an outcast among the senior female employees. She becomes fed up with her situation and takes action.

One day, the current prime minister of Japan, Muto Taizan (Endo Kenichi), and his useless son, Sho (Suda Masaki), suddenly discover that they have switched bodies. With no known cause or solution at hand, Sho reluctantly ends up appearing in the Diet on his father’s behalf. But he completely cannot follow the deliberations as well as the questions and answers because it has been his routine to skip his studies. He is also repeatedly caught making childish responses or misreading kanji in documents. However, untainted by the adult world, Sho’s straightforward opinions and genuine feelings start to mobilise the Diet and the public. On the other hand, Taizan has to lead the life of a university student and search for a job on behalf of his son, but with the brains of a prime minister. He refutes arrogant interviewers with his overwhelming knowledge and debating skills. Although Taizan wins the war of words, he is an absolute failure in the interviews itself. Furthermore, several peculiar girls whom Sho has had relationships with appear and makes Taizan more bewildered.

Mare (Tsuchiya Tao) is an elementary school student. She lives with her family in the city, but, right before her father goes bankrupt, they run away and settle down at a fishing village in Noto. The family rents a couple’s home who run a salt pond. Mare’s father starts a new business, but it also fails. Her mother supports the family by working at the salt pond. 8 years later, Mare, about to graduate from high school, decides to work for the Wajima local government. She wants to have a steady job, unlike her father. Her job is to support people who move to Noto.

It was the year 14 of the Tempo era (1843), a little girl was born into the Sugi family. Named Fumi (Inoue Mao), she is the 4th daughter in the family, also the younger sister of Bakumatsu-era Choshu Domain philosopher Yoshida Shoin (Iseya Yusuke) She went on to marry Katori Motohiko, becoming his second wife after her elder sister, Ju. Fumi also married Kusaka Genzui (Higashide Masahiro) a key person in the Sonno Joi faction in the Choshu Domain. However, Kusaka later passed away so Fumi remarried Katori Motohiko, the first mayor of Gunma Prefecture.

Story revolves around a new talent agent Sawatari Ichiko (Nakama Yukie) and a younger actor Sakisaka Ryo (Machida Keita)scouted by her. As she struggles to train him to be a star, he gradually finds the joy of acting and they become partners aiming for the top in the unknown world of show business

Based on stories written by Megumi Hatakenaka, a drama revolves around Asanosuke (Fukushi Seiji)who is a son and heir of distinguished arbitrator in Edo. Together with his childhood friends, he brilliantly solves mysteries and problems lurking in the town.

Kumagai (Moriyama Mirai) is an art teacher at a private female high school. Sakai (Katsura Bunchin), the school’s chairman of the board, runs the school like the school is his own property and pays Kumagi a low salary. Then, Music Teacher Naoko (Takahata Mitsuki) and P.E. Teacher Oyamada (Onoue Hiroyuki) asks Kumagi to join them in a scheme to blackmail Sakai.Unexpectedly, Sakai and his girlfriend Akemi (Nakamura Yuri) go missing. The duo are assumed to be kidnapped by Minowa (Kinoshita Houka) and Nakao (Kimura Yuichi) who are education consultants. Meanwhile, Kumagai and Naoko unwittingly become involved in a scheme to steal large amount of gold bars that were hidden by Sakai

Numazaki Kyota (Koizumi Kotaro) is the director of a TV program production company. He discovers a female body in a forest in Fuji. The autopsy concludes that the female froze to death, but a kidney from the body was removed. Detective Shiroi (Toyohara Kosuke) doubts the conclusion of the autopsy report.Meanwhile, female patient Haruko Takakura receives an artificial dialysis. Her daughter appeals to Dr. Hino Seiichiro (Takeda Tetsuya) to give her kidney to her mother, but Dr. Seiichiro Hino opposes.An injured man and woman are brought to the hospital. Director of the Hospital, Ota Isamu (Ogi Shigemitsu), learns from the scars of the injured persons, that a kidney transplant was carried out between the man and woman. He also learns that the kidney was sold and bought. He reports his discovery to the police. Dr. Seiichiro Hino performed the kidney transplant and is asked to go to the police station. TV program director Kyota Numazaki decides to cover the story between the female body and the organ trade.

The body of a person who died an unnatural death is discovered encased in mortar like concrete in the basement of an abandoned building. Why was the person murdered this way? The next day, the investigation task force receives a phone call from the criminal who calls himself Tremi during a meeting to discuss the investigation of the case. Then, in a short time after her transfer to the First Investigative Division, Kisaragi Toko (Kimura Fumino) becomes the negotiator. Tremi mocks and provokes the police while offering hints regarding the murder. A second murder soon occurs just as Tremi had warned. The victim’s head has been covered with concrete as they had expected. What is the criminal’s motive and why is the criminal fixated with concrete? The criminal’s surprising actual target soon emerges …

At the Playboys Private Detective Agency, all the members are men older than 55. The director of the private detective agency is an ex-detective. The members of the agency have varied backgrounds like a former taxi driver, physician and ex-Olympic athlete.Iwase Koichiro (Takahashi Katsumi) worked in the sales department of a consumer electronics company, but he now works as a private detective. He tries to solve clients’ request, while sometimes cooperating and sometimes opposing the other members of the Playboys Private Detective Agency.

HATSUMORI BEMARS

Air Date:

12:12 am, Saturdays, 10 July 2015

Cast:

Nogizaka46

Sypnopsis:

This drama series revolves around an unskilled, no-experience newbie softball team challenging one of the champion teams to save their beloved park known as “The Park of Beginning” from being demolished for a new apartment complex. Kirei (Shiraishi Mai), the daughter of the chairman of the urban development company, challenges Nanamaru (Nishino Nanase) in the softball tournament to take back the park’s redevelopment contract and save her most treasured park.

The 40-year-old Asakura Hazuki (Fujiwara Norika) is fired by the press she worked for 15 years. And she also breaks up with her love Kosuke (Yamashita Kenjiro) with whom she has dated for 7 years. Now she feels extremely anxious about her life.
One day, Hazuki gets on a sightseeing bus that stopped on the side of the road in order to hide from Kosuke whom she was about to run into again.
Hazuki has no plan for touring. However, the atmosphere of the bus gradually gets lively and happy because of the tour guide Natsumi’s (Kimura Midoriko) outstanding speech skill.
In the meantime, she becomes involved in the unexpected disturbance caused by a high school girl passenger (Arakawa Chika).

HONDANA SHOKUDO SEASON 2

Air Date:

11:15, Tuesdays, 07 July 2015

Cast:

Nakamura Aoi, Emoto Tokio, Yamashita Rio, Yui Ryoko, Makita Sports

Sypnopsis:

The male duo Sanada Nishiki (Nakamura Aoi) and Yamada Jiro (Emoto Tokio) are behind Himekawa Rosanna, the popular girls manga writer. The two of them were cultivated by an editor (Yui Ryoko) nicknamed the “Monster” and debuted as a girls manga writer. Despite their popularity, they really want to draw gourmet manga. The bookshelves of the secret library in their home office are lined with novels, essays and manga full of delicious food. When they are under the pressure of manga series deadlines, they would routinely escape from reality and into the “2D gourmet” in the books, forget about their deadlines and end up cooking.

Yamaguchi Rika (Katase Nana) works for a record company. She has the worst birthday of her life when she is cheated of her money by a former boyfriend. An older woman (Watanabe Eri) dressed in a leopard print dress suddenly appears in front of her with white smoke. This older woman identifies herself as Rika from 20 years into the future. She laments her untimely death, which was caused by losing her footing on a beer bottle at a pub. She has come from the future in order to make a fresh start in life. Together with her future self with a despairingly different style and appearance, Rika begins a big battle to start over again.

Set during the Edo period. Ichiro Onodera’s father dies suddenly due to a fire at home. 19-year-old Ichiro Onodera (Nagayama Kento) comes home. His father was supposed to prepare Sankin-kotai and lead the lines of Sankin-kotai to Edo.
After his father’s death, Ichiro Onodera leads the lines of Sankin-kotai and heads to Edo. During the journey, he faces various cases and schemes which targets his family.

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Comments

Afnan Acchan

Dokonjo Gaeru . Acchan

Cathy

This season’s dramas don’t look very interesting….:(

nikki

the only thing that’s slightly interesting to me plot wise is the death note drama and onna michi but other than that maybe just for the actors the ones from fukushi sota, keiko kitagawa and mariya nishiuchi

Koizumi

I hope the subbing team on viki don’t give up on subbing Ramen Daisuki Koizumi-san, it’s super entertaining!

yamakita

That girl was pretty annoying in Second Love. Her face is also distracting… Meh.

pondloso

this drama is the best so far in this season I’m just watch ep2 and i can say if they not make

second season for this drama mean they really stupid.
this drama have every this in 20 min even a lot of 45 min drama cant make
it so faking fun 3 lead girl have they own character and soooo cute
and ramen in this series it a real deal don’t watch whit empty stomach .

lol 2nd season for this drama will make it another version of Kodoku no Gurume, nevertheless the main character is a high school girl so they can’t do sequel forever like KnG

Dalooshe

Death Note’s first ep was for some reason underwhelming :/ Also Konkatsu Deka sounds exactly like Unubore Deka but gender reversed so I wont bother as Nagase’s role was epic and that’s that :p

But zomgg I’m mostly excited for 1. Prime Minister 2. 7 Detectives!! Suda Masaki and Higashiyama Noriyuki are like my new favourite tv magnets! There are some interesting plots out there so I’ll give the rest a try and see :)

veannedeas

I watched Death Note 1st episode and….idk how to describe what i feel though.
I can totally see what they’re trying to do with Light’s character, but L? Are they purposely making him looking like a pretty fuckboy with arrogant-ish attitude just for a fanservice-thing? Because if it is then it’s not working for me.

yamakita

Awww. I like the new Light, but the rest of the cast does look quite underwhelming.

pondloso

it a big disappointed for me every lead character are fail in my eyes except light little sister

Encha277

Nothing really drawing my attention, but thank you for compiling these lists. I always look forward to them.

Planning to watch RAMEN DAISUKI KOIZUMI-SAN. TANTEI NO TANTEI and ISHI NO MAYU sound interesting. I’ve not seen any of the live-action DEATH NOTE stuff but since they deviate from the manga for this one, I might end up checking it. But then again, this all depends upon whether I find subs first!

Hmmm, everything is seems boring to me. Only one got me interested is Tamiou.

Kiki

Does anyone know any good drama sites with subs?

Arnolin ☕

dramanice.tv ~ gogodrama ~

Umi

Watching Risk no Kami-sama for Go lol. I’ve always wanted to see him do more acting and his old dramas are my favorite.

pondloso

and this drama really great from ep 1 all actor really great ans story really realistic

cant wait for ep 2 and sub eng(i not under stand a lot of line)

mugiwara

I’ve currently managed to catch Risk no Kamisama and Death Note.

I think it’s a pity Risk no Kamisama is in the same timeslot as Hanasaki Mai. I didn’t watch the first season of Hanasaki Mai, but it’s gotta be tough pitting anything against something that has had a popular first season. Not to mention both dramas target the same audience with their similar genre. Fuji needs to stop this VS thing they keep doing during the 10pm Wednesday slot – the same thing happened with Zannen no Otto and Marumaru Tsuma, and a couple others that I forget now. Most of the time, it ends with Fuji’s crushing defeat. I’m not too sure what they’re trying to prove, because the only time they were successful in this battle was Legal High. Anyway, from the comments I’ve read online, it seems like more people found Risk no Kamisama interesting (many recorded it to watch later, and watched Hanasaki Mai in real time), so I wonder how the ratings will change from here on. I don’t think there’d be any major shift, though a minor one might be possible – perhaps average 8-9% for Risk and 11-12% for Hanasaki Mai?

As for Death Note, I was a fan of the original series so I’m watching, but I’m not too sure I like the changes :/ Still gonna keep watching (at least for now) for Kubota Masataka though.

naa

I’m so late to this but I am definitely checking out Keiji 7nin because of Higashiyama even though there’s a crapload of keiji dramas this season. Seriously…. does anyone else see that?! All those detective dramas this season, when I first saw this I had to double take.
I’m actually not looking forward to this season at all which is surprising. I can usually find a few decent dramas to watch but this season is especially boring. And this is coming from a lover of dramas. I hope next season shows more promise!

swt_kiss01

Does anyone know where I can watch onmyouji drama special ? Did it premiere yet in Japan?